Even more important than the actual dancing steps they do is the manner in which they execute them—the individuality that they express. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality which lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo dancer. In this book I am trying to help you develop your personality, in the same way that I have discovered and developed that quality in so many of today's theatrical stars.
Most emphatically I want to impress upon you that it is not "chorus work" you are learning in my courses. It is professional and individual dancing, that when mastered gives one that certain something that one lacked before, a feeling of having accomplished assurance of success.
AL JOLSON
Anyone who masters the dances takes on a certain confident feeling in time, after exercising great patience in practice. With this confidence, the happy pupil radiates a new magnetic personality which the audience feels—but more about this later on, when you will learn just how one's self is injected into the dances, until they are vitalized and become the living embodiment of the emotions and spirit of the dancer. This is putting one's own personality into the dance, and is one secret of every great artist's success, which we seek to instill into the minds of all our students.